Chapter 4 - Kent #2
My body surges toward the house like it's spring-loaded, every muscle coiled for violence. The rational part of my mind screams warnings—too many variables, too public, too fucking stupid—but my body doesn't care about rational anymore.
I make it three steps before I catch myself, grabbing the fence post hard enough to make the wood creak under my grip. Splinters dig into my palm, sharp points of pain that help anchor me to reality.
Not yet. Not like this.
But watching Jenkins hurt her is like watching myself at nine years old, small and helpless, while someone bigger used me as a target for their own rage. The same fucking powerlessness, the same desperate need to make it stop, the same crushing knowledge that no one is coming to help.
Through the front door's glass panel, I can see them moving deeper into the house.
Jenkins still has hold of her wrist, dragging her along like a disobedient child.
The door swings shut behind them, cutting off most of the sound, but I can still hear his voice rising and falling in waves of accusation and threat.
I shift position, moving along the fence line until I find a gap between the slats that gives me a better view of their living room.
The space is small and cluttered, dominated by an old television and a couch that's seen better decades.
Jenkins forces Delilah to stand in the center of the room while he paces around her, still talking, still building his case for why she deserves whatever's coming next.
She stands perfectly still, hands at her sides, head slightly bowed. I've seen this posture before—in mirrors, in other people who learned early that the best way to survive a storm is to make yourself small and wait for it to pass.
But this storm isn't passing. It's just getting started.
Jenkins stops pacing and turns to face her directly, swaying slightly on his feet. Even from outside, I can see the ugly expression on his face, the particular look that means someone has decided to hurt you and is just choosing how.
"You want to play games with me?" he says, loud enough that his voice carries through the window. "Fine. We'll play games. But first, you're going to tell me exactly where you hid my keys, and then you're going to apologize for making me look like an idiot."
Delilah raises her head slightly, and I can see her gathering what's left of her courage. "Dad, I really didn't—"
The sound of his hand hitting her face cracks through the night air like a gunshot.
My vision goes red at the edges, and for a moment I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't do anything but watch as she staggers back a step, one hand pressed to her cheek, her careful composure finally cracking into something raw and desperate.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, the words automatic and heartbreaking. "I'm sorry, Dad. I don't know where your keys are, but I'm sorry."
She's apologizing. She's standing there with a handprint blooming across her face, and she's fucking apologizing to the man who put it there.
Just like I used to do.
"Now," Jenkins says, his voice taking on a mock-reasonable tone that's somehow worse than the shouting, "you're going to help me find those keys. And you're going to keep looking until we find them."
He doesn't believe his own story anymore—if he ever did. This isn't about keys. This is about power, about having someone to hurt, about feeding whatever black thing lives inside him that needs to see fear in other people's eyes.
"Start with the kitchen," he orders, gesturing toward the back of the house. "Check every drawer, every cabinet. Maybe you hid them somewhere you forgot about."
Delilah moves like she's underwater, each step careful and measured.
The red mark on her cheek is already darkening, a handprint that will be purple by morning.
She knows this is pointless—she knows exactly where the keys are, because she knows she didn't take them—but she plays along because the alternative is worse.
I watch through the window as she opens cabinet doors with methodical precision, checking behind dishes and boxes of cereal, moving cans and containers with the kind of thoroughness that comes from years of learning that half-measures bring punishment.
Jenkins follows her around the small kitchen like a circling shark, close enough that she has to squeeze past him to reach the higher shelves.
"Your mother used to do this same shit," he says conversationally, taking another pull from his flask. "Hide things from me, move stuff around, make me think I was going crazy. Lying bitch thought she was so clever."
Delilah's hands still for just a moment on a cabinet handle, but she doesn't respond. Smart girl. She's learned that engaging with his delusions only feeds them.
"Look where it got her," Jenkins continues, and there's something in his voice now that makes my skin crawl. Not grief—satisfaction. "All that running around, all that sneaking. Didn't help her much when she wrapped her car around that tree, did it?"
The words hit me like ice water. Car accident, my ass. The way he says it, the timing—Delilah was nine when her mother died, old enough to remember, young enough to be shaped by the loss. Old enough to understand what questions not to ask.
"Dad, please," Delilah whispers, her voice barely audible through the glass. "I'm looking. I'm checking everywhere."
"Check harder." Jenkins moves closer, crowding her against the counter. "Because I'm getting tired of this game, and you know what happens when I get tired."
She nods quickly and moves to the next cabinet, but her movements are getting shakier, less controlled. The fear is bleeding through her careful composure, and Jenkins can smell it like blood in the water.
"Nothing here either," she says after checking the last drawer, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "Maybe they're in the living room? Or upstairs?"
"Maybe you're just not looking hard enough."
The words are barely out of his mouth before he grabs her by the shoulders and slams her backward into the cabinet. The impact sends dishes rattling inside, and Delilah's head snaps back against the wood with a sound that makes my vision go white at the edges.
"I'm sorry!" The words tumble out of her automatically, a conditioned response to violence. "I'm sorry, Dad. I don't know where they could be. I really don't."
My hands are shaking now, fingers digging into the fence post hard enough to drive splinters under my nails. The rational part of my mind—the part that usually controls everything—is drowning under a flood of memory and rage.
Nine years old and backed against the kitchen wall, while he explains why I made him angry. Twelve and apologizing for existing, for breathing too loud, for not being invisible enough. Fifteen and finally big enough to fight back, finally understanding that some people only understand violence.
But who the fuck do you call when the violence is coming from a cop?
When the person wearing a badge is the monster under the bed?
Jenkins's fellow officers protect him, cover for him, make complaints disappear into filing cabinets that never see daylight.
Internal Affairs investigators who golf with the accused.
District attorneys who need police cooperation to win cases.
The system isn't broken—it's working exactly as designed. To protect the people with power from the people without it.
"Upstairs," Jenkins says, pointing toward the staircase with his flask. "Check every room. And if you don't find them, we're going to have a serious discussion about honesty."
Delilah edges past him toward the stairs, moving like someone trying not to attract a predator's attention. But Jenkins follows close behind, his boots heavy on the wooden steps, each footfall a promise of worse things coming.
"You know what your problem is?" he says as they climb. "You think you're better than me. Going to college, reading your fancy books, acting like you're too good for this family."
They reach the top of the stairs, and I lose sight of them for a moment. But I can still hear Jenkins's voice, growing louder and more agitated as alcohol and adrenaline feed off each other.
"You think because you get good grades, because you want to join the FBI, that makes you special? That makes you important?"
A door slams somewhere upstairs—Delilah's room, probably, though I can't be sure from this angle.
"I know what you think of me," Jenkins continues, his voice echoing through the house. "I see it in your eyes. The same look your mother used to give me. Like I'm some kind of animal."
Thud.
Something heavy hits the floor—furniture being moved, or knocked over, or thrown. My body moves toward the house again, pulled by instincts I can't control. Three steps this time before I force myself to stop.
"Maybe it's time you learned some fucking respect."
Crack.
The sound is sharp and clear through the night air—wood splintering, or something breaking. Then Delilah's voice, high and frightened: "Dad, please! I'll keep looking, I promise!"
But Jenkins is past listening now. Past rational thought. He's found his groove, the place where alcohol and rage and old pain converge into something that needs to hurt other people to feel better about itself.
"Disrespectful little bitch," he shouts, and I can hear his footsteps moving around upstairs, heavy and unsteady. "Just like your mother. Well, look how that turned out for her."
Another crash, louder this time. Glass breaking. Then Delilah's voice again, smaller and more desperate: "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please, I didn't take your keys!"
But she's not sorry for taking keys she never touched. She's sorry for existing. Sorry for being small and vulnerable and trapped in a house with a monster who wears a badge during the day and terrorizes children at night.
Sorry for breathing while female. Sorry for wanting more than this. Sorry for being born.